Labor clears the decks: Evans and Roxon depart

Minister for Tertiary Education and Senate Leader Chris Evans and Attorney-General Roxon have announced their departures from Cabinet at a media conference in Canberra this morning, with Evans indicating he will be resigning from the Senate in coming months and the Attorney-General stating she will retire from politics at the next election. The Prime Minister immediately announced a detailed reshuffle to replace them, further confirming that this was a long-planned move.

Evans, nearly twenty years in the Senate, is understood to have resigned for personal reasons, the latest victim of the intensely-demanding Perth-Canberra commute that has worn down previous WA senators on both sides of the chamber. Evans, while personally well-regarded, struggled as minister first in Immigration, where he oversaw the dismantling the Pacific Solution and the removal of Temporary Protection Visas only to see asylum seeker boat arrivals start to rise during Kevin Rudd’s Prime Ministership, and then in Workplace Relations, where he struggled to fight off an aggressive, confected campaign by employers to return to elements of WorkChoices. Eventually he was moved into the lower-profile but important portfolio of Tertiary Education.

The departure of Roxon is more surprising; she has been in Parliament since 1998 and, after a successful stint as Health Minister, became Attorney-General at the end of 2011. She has been dogged by civil rights issue, with widespread criticism of a slate of national security reforms put forward by her department, and an attempt to collate anti-discrimination laws into a single act that drew fire from a wide spectrum of critics concerned about freedom of speech.

Deputy Senate Leader and factional powerbroker Stephen Conroy is expected to succeed Evans despite a push for Penny Wong. The one clear benefit from Evans’ departure, assuming Conroy succeeds him, is that the pugnacious Broadband Minister will be far more aggressive in the Senate than Evans. A persistent feature of Labor’s period in office has been an absence of the kind of remorseless political aggression demonstrated by Tony Abbott once he became Opposition Leader. Stephen Conroy would bring that to his leadership of the Senate.

The departures (Evans’s leaked last night), inevitably, have been portrayed in the media as evidence of “disarray” in what is supposed to be the Prime Minister’s epically long election campaign. It should more accurately be seen as a clearing of the ministerial decks at the start of an election year.

Ministerial changes

Chris Bowen is the big winner from the reshuffle, being shifted from the immensely difficult Immigration portfolio to Evans’s Tertiary Education portfolio, with strong Gillard supporter Brendan O’Connor replacing him at Immigration. Labor QC Mark Dreyfus will replace Roxon in the Attorney-General, an elevation that takes him straight into Cabinet. There are a number of other promotions as well, one consequent to the return to the backbench of Justine Elliot, whom the Prime Minister had said had grown uncomfortable as Parliamentary Secretary for Trade while she was leading a campaign against coal seam gas.

Bowen will be delighted to escape Immigration, where he has had to deal with a massive increase in boat arrivals and the reinstatement of the Pacific Solution, but where he also achieved the historic reform of a massive increase in Australia’s humanitarian intake, to 20,000.

The PM’s media release outlining the full array of changes follows:

CHANGES TO THE MINISTRY

Today I pay tribute to Senator Chris Evans and Attorney General Nicola Roxon who will step down from the Cabinet immediately.

I thank them both for their tireless efforts in Government since 2007 and in Opposition. They have worked in critical portfolios and leave a proud legacy of Labor reforms which have helped create a stronger, fairer modern Australia.

Their departure leaves big shoes to fill. But it paves the way for fresh talent, new ideas and new energy during the days of governing in 2013. It means a rejuvenated team who will keep building a smarter, fairer modern Australia.

Senator Evans has led Labor in the Senate since 2004 and acted as Prime Minister on several occasions. He has served as Minister in the demanding portfolios of Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research, Immigration and Citizenship and Workplace Relations.

He implemented substantial changes that transformed the nation’s tertiary education system. An additional 190,000 students are now studying at university – many of them the first in their families to do so.

Elected to the Senate in 1993, Senator Evans established the National Workforce Development Fund, the first employer-led training partnership that ensures we are training Australians for jobs not just for the sake of training.

Thanks Bernard for the more sober account of this program of clearing the decks. I might say a more cognitive and informative observation than that displayed by the Fairfax Press.
I am unable, thankfully, to to comment on the Murdoch’s press’s attitudes as they speak a differnet language than I had been taught and I have never been able to acquire a translation dictionary.
If the leader of the opposition had a brain in his empty cranium he could take a lesson from our Prime Minister and renew himself with some substance, and ditch most of his front bench.

Balanced account Bernard; obviously resisting the buzz at the presser. Someone used the word “chaos” in an early question and someone else took up the refrain. How many of our journos have minds of their own? Baaa! Lucky we have a continual churn in media content; by Tuesday the fashion will have changed again and the sheep will be baaing a different line. Recommend all of us try to read something other than the MSM over the next 7 months, starting with Crikey.

Michael, don’t you think it rather gross that Roxon wants to spend more time with her own 8 year old while she just passed laws to punish single parents so they can’t spend more time with their own 8 year olds.

David, don’t you think Penny should lead the Senate? Who could be more qualified to hold their finger in the dykе – a small, Asian, female finger, no less – and forestall a torrent of Liberal legislation after the election?

Clearly Crikey mod’s do not operate on the weekend.
Patriot, GW, if you have nothing sensible to offer, may I respectfully suggest you both get a life.

Roxon has her name and fingerprints all over two pretty messy proposals; AGD’s new spy wishlist and that little anti descrimination thing that has commentators so worked up just now. It will be interesting to see how Mark Dreyfus (aparently well qualified for such a fight) will handle them….. Could he be a rising star for labor or an easy target for the true left?
matt

I wouldn’t worry too much about lack of moderation, in fact I welcome it. It’s instructive to see what the likes of GeeWizz (#17) and Patriot (#14) do with all that rope – i.e. they hang themselves. In full public view.

if you were to dribble into the puddle that is the msm the puddle would double in size, if you were to p*ss in the puddle the msm would drown, a bit wah wah I know but 2 people retiring after nearly 20 years in the job and the world ends? Roxon was a bit control freakery for me anyway.

Emma Alberici advertised Lateline on Friday evening post Evan’s announcement of his retirement in terms of the ‘embattled Prime Minister’. I’d thought it seemed like a good time for a government minister to announce his/her retirement from politics to enable a smooth handover to a replacement. However the MSM seem determined to see every move as a blow to the the PM’s position. It’s going to be a long year in politics unfortunately. At least with the election date known, the MSM can’t waste acres of space trying to interpret every government action as foreshadowing the announcement of the election date

fractious;
No it isn’t of concern to me. It livens the debate and discourse as long as some civility is maintained.
I am not sure about the new avators though, I did enjoy being displayed as a feral species from the bush. It sort of suited my thunders from the bush.
The neocons habit of repeating their mantras of hate have to be repeated regularly in order to confirm in their own minds what they need to believe.
It could be called irrational sublimation and reinforcement.

Planet Earth, you say, John?
Which solar system is that in then? Or perhaps you live in an alternative reality, where everything the opposition says is in fact true and the old fashioned press is non partisan and factual.
Come September, we’ll see how many other “John”s have swallowed the cool-ade “fromplanetearth”.

Bowen to Treasuer would have been a good move, at least he comes across well, has a background in finance and has handled immigration as best as anyone could. Swan could go to arts or regional australia, just somewhere where he is not required to sell the govts message day after day.

Suppose the libs submit thier policys for costing and found to be incorrect. Does anyone really think people,(apart from the rusted ons) will believe anything wayne swan says. Is damaged goods as far as the electorate is concerned. 7.30 report appearance last week was woeful.

People can go on all they like about low IR, low unemployment, low inflation, but if it is Swan doing the spruiking, then the Govt will not get the thanks it probably deserves.

It would appear that the LNP and tea party lite followers on this blog have the election stitched up without their much vaunted leader anouncing one policy of substance (apart from abolution of taxes, one of which by all acocunts will be very difficult to do easily- Carbon Tax).
Unlike the dictatorshipo currently ruling Queensland, the Federal Parliament has a Senate.
Patriot and fellow travellers, let’s see the new Inductrial policy, environmental policy, payment for all Abbotts grandious schemes for yet more middle class welfare. I am looking forward to seeing John Howard on the huskings, only the second PM that has lost his seat in an election!
As for Poll results, if you are a believer of those then the visit by the Easter Bunny is not that far away for you.

The real battle lines are between the forces behind the Attorney General’s Department, who push for a big brother style crackdown on internet freedom, and we the people. The forces that have driven a strong politician like Roxon to despair …

To reduce it all down to cheering from the sidelines for Party A versus Party B is naive and destructive.